The recent proliferation of digital communication networks, ranging from local area and wide area networks (LAN/WAN) to personal home networks, has created a multitude of pathways through which electronic devices may communicate. The group of devices capable of being networked is no longer limited to just computers, but has expanded to include devices such as printers, copiers, and even facsimile machines to name just a few.
As the number of networked devices continues to grow, so too does the amount of data processed by these devices. It is not uncommon for individuals in an office setting to send and receive large amounts of data in both electronic and printed formats daily.
A large percentage of the data sent and received by individuals tends to be in the form of electronic mail (email). Typically, when an individual receives email they read it and then choose to either save a copy of the message or delete it. Often, individuals will read a particular piece of email and subsequently delete it only to find at a later date that they should have saved the email. Similarly, individuals who save email messages may misplace one or more messages over a period of time. If the individual is located in an office that maintains a systems administrator, they may be able to have the message recovered or found. Unfortunately, however, it is difficult to identify a specific message once it is deleted and searching for a misplaced message can prove time consuming as well.
Electronic data including word processing files, spreadsheet files, and images are not immune to deletion or misplacement either. After creation, these types of files may be sent to another individual in electronic format, or more typically printed out. It is common for an individual working on a draft version of a file to print multiple versions of the file at various times. An individual may unwittingly delete an old version of a file only to discover that the saved version of the file is even older.
It is therefore desirable to have a system that manages electronic files and documents that originate from a variety of sources with reduced, or even minimized, user intervention and provides a straightforward interface for efficient electronic file retrieval. It is also desirable to provide a system for managing and organizing electronic documents in response to conditions that occur after the documents are originally stored.